


find strength in pain

by transvav



Series: boldness stands alone [1]
Category: Mianite (Minecraft Series), Minecraft - Fandom, Realm of Mianite - Fandom
Genre: Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Throw-Up, Realm of Mianite, Realm of Theadel, he's literally sick though, it's alluded to at least bc he is sick as hell, jordan is dying pog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:09:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/transvav/pseuds/transvav
Summary: their trip to the nether seems innocent enough, at first, but as time goes by, things get worse. and jordan can't seem to find a grip.
Series: boldness stands alone [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017921
Comments: 7
Kudos: 46





	find strength in pain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Topazgirlygirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Topazgirlygirl/gifts).



> this is a gift for my lovely lovely topaz!!! <3  
> if you're confused about some of this the very basics of it are this is set in my fan season 3, the realm of theadel, where ianite is the decisive villain and their alts are still there (otm is tom's, and commander is jordan's).

jordan’s in the nether for two days before it starts to really set in.

that is to say, he’s in a _cell_ , in a fortress, in the nether, in the heart of some fucked up political war for two days before it starts to set in. for some reason no one will explain to him he’s being kept in the dungeon, but that’s okay. he’s dealt with worse. he sits and he fiddles with scraps of metal to pass the time, carves into pieces of wood and uses them as focuses, like wag had taught him back in ruxomar. it’s not quite the same magic‒ this place is closer to home in terms of energy, but that’s just fine by him. there are still _changes_ , though.

theadel isn’t bad, not by any means. the most off putting part, up until recently, had been meeting their alternate selves‒ but the commander is nice enough, jordan supposes, even if talking to him had felt like talking to mirror at some points. a very impassive mirror. and the leader of the rebellion‒ _autumn_ , jordan thinks he heard before he was dragged off with a bag over his head‒ seemed competent, but not unkind. the few times they’d spoken it’d become clear that this was tom’s other self, and though they hadn’t talked much, it was more and more obvious that the leader thought he was someone else. and the only other person who looked like jordan was‒ well.

he doesn’t want to think about the implications, of that.

his captors are, again, not unkind in their holdings. he has a cot, with a cotton blanket just in case, and a trapdoor-like side table beside it so he could eat somewhat comfortably, to an extent. they bring him food three times a day, and there is a separate area for a working bathroom, and they give him water bottles. they don’t want him dead, the mianitee that often brought him things explains at dinner that second night. “it’d bring real hell upon us if you were killed.”

and the meaning of that nearly horrifies him‒ or it would have, if his head had been clear instead of absolutely _pounding_ with a migraine. he’s had them before, in the nether, though, so it doesn’t bother him much. he’s always had issues like that in dianite’s realm. it simply is a part of who he was, and how his choice had gone. no, what worries him more, that night, is the dream he has of her.

his dreams are often on beaches, when the sea is calm, gently lapping up the sand. the light has been sinking on the horizon with every realm they’re in‒ it’s rather close to being gone, now, casting the sky into hazes of oranges and that familiar purple. she is never there, not really, but her voice is usually close enough he can hear it without trying. it had gotten a little harder, in ruxomar, but had not been impossible. this time, though, she is further away again, and the sand beneath his feet feels unnaturally heavy, like it drags him down.

_be careful_ , the wind carries her voice. _oh, captain, be safe._

“i will,” he calls back, and hopes she can hear him, hopes he does her proud. the winds pick up and ruffle his curls‒ the campfire beside him is bright, but it flickers and dances uncertainly. for once, it feels almost too warm against his palms when he turns them towards it, like if he went too closely, his skin would burn. in fact, his entire body felt like it was running hot‒ the confusion is enough to rouse him.

the mianitee is at the bars, about to open the door, and startles when he shoots up out of bed. there’s a moment of disorientation‒ _this isn’t his tree, this isn’t his tower, this isn’t his homestead‒_ but after that second passes, a wave of heat cascades over him, and he’s suddenly all too aware of the sweat that plasters his hair to his forehead and his shirt to his back. the migraine hasn’t faded, not at all‒ if anything, it’s somehow worse, and the light clinking of the keys as they’re put into the lock seems like it’s echoed at him over tenfold.

“y’alright?” the man asks, not unkindly, and jordan takes a moment to wipe his face with his hands, smoothing his hair back and rubbing the bridge of his nose between his eyes. he nods, slipping his glasses over his eyes, and the guard gives him a bottle of water, waiting cautiously nearby. jordan takes slow, unsure sips, hoping it’ll settle the queasy feeling in his stomach, and it does, a bit. “he wants to speak to you again. i’ll be taking you up after you eat.”

“i, uh. i think i’ll pass on breakfast this morning,” he mumbles.

“alright,” the guard says after a long pause. “if you insist.”

jordan stands when the other man turns around, knowing when he does he’s going to stumble‒ sure enough, he has to catch himself on the edge of the table, taking a slow, deep breath. when he gets his balance back, he slips his jacket back over his shoulders and makes sure to button it near his stomach, hoping the pressure will help take away the nausea even more, knowing full well it won’t.

he’s used to the room he usually meets the rebellion leader in. what he’s not used to is the sudden shout of his name when he walks in, and the sudden arms around his back that crush him tight against someone else’s chest. when the shock wears off, he recognizes the familiar light brown hair, as well as the feeling of chaotic magic pressed up against his skin. _tom_ , he thinks, relieved and fond, and squeezes him tight in return.

someone clears his throat near them‒ he looks up and sees the leader with his hands clasped, as well as his possessions strewn neatly on the table. “i want to apologize for my treatment of you for the last two days,” he says, a bit bashfully. “i mistook you for someone you weren’t, and accused you of crimes you haven’t yet committed. it took your friends quite a bit to convince me otherwise.”

“water under the bridge,” jordan says, smiling. “i’ve been in more difficult situations‒ and i can understand how you’d confuse me, that’s happened before as well.”

“i’m not surprised,” the man nods. “you look an awful lot like‒ ah. no matter. my name’s autumn‒ spelled _o-t-m._ ”

“jordan,” he replies, confirming for sure that this is tom’s alt, and wondering why the universe has decided to just utterly mess up tom’s name until the end of time. “most people call me sparklez, though.”

“shit, sparkly-dick,” tom finally adds to the conversation, pulling away. “you’re _drenched_ , mate‒ oh, shit, you haven’t had any healing potions either, have you? how’s the head?”

“healing potions?” otm asks, brow furrowing. “we haven’t _tortured_ him.”

“no‒ he just‒” tom makes a frustrated noise, digging through his own pack furiously, and jordan laughs gently at his antics.

“being in the nether gives me some issues, as a champion of ia- of balance,” he explains, correcting himself like he’s learned to in the past few weeks they’ve been around the theadelians. they’re not a fan of hearing Her name. “more than it would anyone else‒ our home realm’s dianite had a guardian that more or less cursed me, and then, well. the last realm we were in... my goddess passed. it deepened our connection, but it just made everything worse, when i’m here.”

“ah,” otm says, nodding in understanding.

tom produces the potion, suddenly, shaking the pink liquid vigorously at jordan, who laughs and takes the bottle gratefully. he sips it down slowly and feels the ache start to fade away. the vicious rolling in his stomach doesn’t, though, but that might just be the mushroom stew from the night before. if it gets worse, he’ll just take a few more potions later on‒ maybe mix a few fire resistances in, as well, like he has in dire situations. if it gets to be really bad, though, he has a few ender pearls on him, and he thinks he’s heard enderman nearby as well‒ it shouldn’t have to come to that, of course. it never has before.

they lead him around the fortress, around the camp, tucked beneath a dark cloak with a hood that covers his face in shadow. he doesn’t ask and neither does tom‒ his grip on jordan’s hand is so tight there’s a moment where he thinks his circulation might get cut off, but it doesn’t matter. there are training grounds, and an archery field‒ a few storage buildings full of weapons and a whole farm of mushrooms and hoglins. there are piglins strewn about, here and there, a few that looked more humanoid than the others, hybrids and fullbloods alike. otm takes them up to another stretch, where he recognizes the stairwell and entrance to be a renovated blaze spawn area, and it leads deeper and deeper until, finally‒ they’re where the others are.

when he takes off the cloak, he’s once again struck by how unbearably thick the air is, the taste of sulfur and gunpowder lingering unhappily in his mouth. all he can smell is gunpowder and mushrooms and boiling iron, and his own sweat, and now he’s all too aware of how uncomfortable tom’s grip is. the thought of letting go makes him feel worse, though, so he just squeezes tighter and smiles when tom does‒ smiles brighter, when he hears the rest of the team, and pushes the feeling further down, reminding himself to take another healing potion that night.

the next few days go without much issue, he thinks‒ he carves a bow from the two wood substitutes, merging the blue and red woods together to keep them sturdy, but flexible, and he goes through many iterations before he finally gets one he likes that’s more powerful than the one he’d had before. he fiddles unhappily with the bowstrings, because they’re never tight enough‒ the arrow always skews, no matter how he fires.

in the meantime, the headaches get worse. the taste of healing pots has never been _appealing_ by any means, but now they just taste like nothing, slick and heavy against his throat every time he swallows it down. he mixes in blaze powder, little by little‒ eventually he just dumps half of a fire resist potion into the remaining half of a healing potion. all it does is make his veins feel like ice, a general numbing sensation that spreads across every inch of his skin. none of his limbs feel like his, that day, but he trudges on, nearly operating on autopilot.

he thinks maybe it seems a little rushed, but what does he know‒ he usually doesn’t spend this long in the nether without going back to the overworld, and definitely not without praying.

(his dreams are getting worse, now. the sun has set beneath the sealine, but there is no moon‒ the oceans have calmed, flat and glassy and cold, like black ice, and the sky is starless. the beach has slowly disappeared beneath his feet, but still, he feels like he’s being dragged down further and further, a fog settling low across the area. he finds that he can move, now, stumbling aimlessly and slowly through the nothingness, and when he calls Her name, his voice never sounds right.)

there’s one morning where he wakes up and falls right back into the cot, his mind screaming for him to sit and stay down. when he drinks his morning potion‒ and isn’t that a thought, to be drinking a potion every _morning_ , in hopes that it’ll help‒ when he drinks it, his body strikes his skin with pins and needles. every part of him is achingingly numb and alight with fire in an instant, like an electric shock, and his stomach churns.

he barely makes it to the bathroom.

tom finds him hunched over the hole in the floor, still coughing up spit and bile. he frets, but jordan doesn’t let him get too close‒ he doesn’t want tom to feel the way his skin is burning, how he feels like he’s bright red and burning inside out. _bad lunch_ , he says. _didn’t settle well_.

later that day, he tries another sip. and another, of the healing on its own. one of the fire resist on its own. none of them stay down well, but the pain is unbearable otherwise‒ even golden apples, he finds, don’t do a damn thing. they’re nothing but mush in his mouth and he thinks he cracks his teeth on one, once, tasting copper instead of fruit. the days‒ and the actions‒ all blur together, faster and faster. his coat isn’t warm enough and he stays up at night hastily adding leather lining to fight off the shivers that rack his body, stabbing pinprick wounds into his fingertips and palms and hoping no one would notice. it makes it harder and harder to string his bow, not to mention the shake of his hands‒

he wipes blood from the corner of his mouth and keeps going. no one notices, and if they do, no one says a word‒ they’ve long since learned not to, his family. they know he’ll come to them if he really needs help. and he doesn’t, not yet. he can _fix_ this. he has to fix this.

(he’d said that about ruxomar, too, and look where that had gotten them‒ the fog of his subconscious never clears. he knows the scales are nearby, hearing the chains clatter in the wind, but he can never find them, and he’s afraid that when he does they will turn to dust and crumble, like they never mattered at all. everything he stood for broken and gone, like he had nothing in the first place.)

it takes a week and a half before it boils over.

jordan has felt it building all day‒ he’d managed to get a hold of an enchanted apple, even, and even as he’d savored it, it hadn’t settled right in his chest, nearly gotten stuck in his throat. the mixture of magics strangled him, weighed him down, like heavy shackles and iron chains. he’s been dizzy and dreary since the minute he woke up, and his hair had clung to his forehead and the back of his neck, slick and dripping as he put it into a ponytail. no one notices. no one ever asks, because he’s not the type to‒

he can’t string his bow. he keeps fumbling, the pinprick marks on his fingertips making the string slip from his hands, the bow creaking under his strength, bending and bouncing from his hold. the pressure behind his eyes gets worse and worse, and the world sways beneath where he sits, shaking like an earthquake‒ everything is too much, too much, and it scares the shit out of him, hearing the screams of enderman in the distance, echoing in his own mind, like a cave. they sound angry, and scared, and close, and _desperate_ , and he can feel the blood dripping from his nose, tears down his cheeks, but when he goes to wipe them away, there’s red on his hands.

“jordan?” he hears someone ask, so, _so_ far away, and everything gets louder, gets worse, he’s deaf, he’s lost, his vision is blurry, and it’s so, so cold, and he’s so fucking _hot_ ‒

“jordan!”

the world goes dark as he falls.

* * *

the beach is long since gone, the fog thick and hazy like smoke, and the floor beneath him is solid and cold against his bare feet. it feels less like sand, or dirt, or even gravel‒ it is cracked stone brick, mossy and slick beneath him, and his heart feels like it’s somehow going too fast, and too slow, all at the same time. his vision is dim and blurry, and his breath is heavy. he wipes the blood from his eyes, swipes at his nose, stumbles and trips on a fissure in the stone beneath him‒

someone catches him. he knows, of course, who it is, who it has to be‒ soft hands, a gentle touch, cooling and grounding against his raging fever, and in this grasp, he is safe, and content. the world is nothing but waves, again, waves on the morning beach, gentle and calm, and it smells of saltwater and drying kelp and end stone and dragon’s breath. when he opens his eyes, the room is still dark, but there is purple, soft and gentle and comforting, washed out and faded, but still so much in contrast to the rest that he can’t seem to mind. when the mouth moves, he cannot hear a thing‒ he cannot hear a voice. the tears that end up on his face are like starlight in the nothingness, and he relaxes even further into the hold,eyes closing again, finally feeling like he can relax.

and then he hears Her.

“ _captain,_ ” She calls, and it is like a crystal bell. “ _reach for me, so i can take you home._ ”

when his eyes open, the voice continues, but the Goddess above him does not speak, Her mouth is not moving, and it does not match the words he hears.

“ _captain, please, my commander is searching. we have parties to find you. do not despair into dark so easily. we can save you. you have to reach.”_

commander, he thinks distantly. commander redd. he’s searching? She’s searching?

“ _hold on, captain,_ ” She says, clear as anything‒ the sky above them is dotted with stars, bright and blinding, and the Goddess above him looks so sad, so desperate, cries without making a sound. mouths something soft, and gentle‒ _come home_ , the one that holds him tight says, even as he feels like he’s being pulled away with the tide. _come home to me_.

“ _we’re coming_ ,” She says, and jordan wakes with a gasp.

he wakes in a haze of red, a thick cloth over his eyes and forehead, cool against his skin, and his gut is churning as he tastes the potions on his tongue, a cold bottle against his lips‒ he knocks it, and the hand holding it, away, heaving over the edge of the bed as his body expels the magic. someone makes a quiet noise of pity, readjusts him back into the bed‒

_he’s burning up,_ someone says. _i think he took too many potions, before, i don’t think he can handle them._

_he should be dead_ , someone else insists. _she’s keeping him alive_.

_keep him comfortable_ , and that’s tom, he knows that voice more than anyone else. _we’ll figure something out in the meantime._

his breath escapes him again. he’s so tired. it’s so hot. he feels sick. he sobs, quietly, and hears tom quietly reassuring him.

far, far off in the distance, an enderman screeches, and finds the Goddess’s soon-to-be second champion.

**Author's Note:**

> my [tumblr](http://transandor.tumblr.com)  
> winks loudly. very loudly. if you're curious about theadel come hmu !


End file.
